Euphoria
by CanaanAlshea
Summary: Tragic Times Bring Out The Best And Worst Of People...
1. Prologue

Title: Euphoria Author: Yoko-cw Summary: Tragic Times Bring Out The Best And Worst Of People...

PROLOGUE (Hiei POV)  
'It's cold out tonight...it can't be fucking winter already...' I let the familiar cold sink into my bones as I stare out at a blackening moon, grasping the box of Parliaments that I've had sitting in my coat pocket for the last year now. Never in that year or in the future would I open them; they served as a solid reminder of him, after all. I sigh, watch my breath float out in a shapeless cloud as the train rattles the windows of the old apartment. "Hiei..." my sister calls out, carefully. I cringe; she's scared of me, scared of the violent mood swings, of the bouts of depression that have plagued me since that afternoon. An ironically warm and otherwise happy day when...I don't let the word slip into my mind again.

"I'll be inside before sunrise" I promise her. I feel her eyes blaze into the back of my head a moment more before the sliding glass door whispers shut. 'Sorry Yukina' I whisper to her from the place in my mind 'Sorry for all the empty promises'. I throw a stone down to the empty traintracks, hear it bounce off the graffiti-scarred cement, far from my target.

Habitually, my fingers slip into my coat pocket to finger the pack of cigarettes, half empty for six months, and which I would never use. They weren't mine after all. They belonged to someone with hopeless eyes, and red hair bleached brightly at the tips, in locks of hair I had learned to braid. 2 years ago, his eyes had begun to shine again.

A year ago, we were eighteen.

Six months ago...

...it was about surviving. 


	2. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER ONE**

_Authors note: I forgot to mention earlier! Sorry. This is an alternate universe. Hiei and Kurama are both humans. Also, a warning for Yaoi._

_**People do have souls, But why does that mean we're gonna last forever? A flame is real enough, isn't it, while it's burning?_  
_-even if there's a time it goes out?**_  
_(Legs Sadovsky from Joyce Carol Oates' "Foxfire")_

_***Hiei POV***_  
"Fuck December..." I mutter into my hands, crouched in the windowsill of a coffee shop. The lights are out through the windows, though the city still shines brightly with insomniacs and drug addicts. I'm no higher than them; I've stolen, lied, manipulated. Though I don't care for drugs, I drink until I vomit and I have also developed a nicotine addiction. (We all swear we never will, and then we're laughing at the sober...) My stomach rumbles, intruding on my nostalgia. I sneer, driving my fist below my ribcage and curling into myself. Rather than ignoring it, I find it easier to make it go away.

Around me, life continues. Through brown-red eyes, I watch strangers go by. They laugh, discuss, and hold eachother as the snow clings to their hair. The loners speak on cell phones and to themselves, sipping coffee they payed three bucks too much for and chewing gum to rid themselves of the smell. I sigh, press my palm to my forehead and try to rub away the morning headache. My hair is greasy, the afterthought runs through me as I trace the spiked strands. By memory, I trace along the edge of the white starburst; no doubt it needed dying again. For the moment I push it out of my mind. I had no money, obviously no bathroom to use. I focused on the roughness of the brick behind me, the way my breath twists away from me.

"Get back here!"

I'm pulled from myself at the sharp screech of a girl. My eyes rolled out of habit, nearly by themselves, and I pulled my creaking self up to stand, prepared for being trampled on by idiots who couldn't settle things quietly. I gripped the too-big pocketknife I kept hidden in my leather jacket.

Well...this is new.

The first thing I spotted was bright red hair. Not that this was at all unusual in the city but I had never seen the owner. At the ends of red glowed bright yellow, and green eyes flashed brightly; not with the anger or fear I had been expecting, but rather with a new sort of mischief. 'About time we had some change' I mused, folding my fingers in to keep them warm as I spied on the struggle.

The redhead grinned, twisting and hopping playfully around the infuriated girl. "Stop it! Give it BACK!" She threw her fists out, looking threatening with her purple mowhawk and spiked bracelets. Her muscled arms swung madly at the new boy but she never struck home. "You'll have to be quicker than that..." A lilting alto spoke, not bothering to hide his amusement.

And, like a fox, he hopped backward up a fire escape and vanished before the girl could grab again.

"Fucker!" I flinched as she struck an aluminum trashcan with her booted foot before storming in the opposite direction. I peeked upward in the direction he went, as my voice echoed in the newly silent allyway.

"...Who the hell are you...?"

_***Kurama POV***_  
I couldn't stop the grin that was quickly spreading over my face. "What fools." I laughed breathlessly, my shoulders heaving at the effort of breathing in the cold air. In my left hand I clutched one hundred and twenty dollars, taken from the purse of a fairly hideous young woman. It really was her fault, I counted it out, after all she was the one who was brandishing it like a god damn Thanksgiving dinner. Sighing, I leaned my head back on air and stared up at the fogged and blackened sky. It was a fairly isolated area in front of the old library; it wasn't open and the police tended to hitch out so the drug addicts didn't dare shoot up in plain sight. I smiled, tucking the money into my back pocket and listing out the things I could buy in the safety of my head.

Coffee. It helped me keep my life many times; sleeping on a sidewalk, after all, was one of the best ways to get mugged and murdered in one stroke.  
Food.  
Cigarettes Hydrocodone, valium off the woman on welfare on Cherrywood avenue.  
Tickets; train tickets to get me to a better city. Several passes into The Crows Nest, a popular nightclub for street kids who liked to do crazy things to their faces and hair.

I bit into my lip, tasted the metal ring strung through my lip. Through my tonge was a steel barbell I had gotten four years ago in exchange for a five minute blow job. I had stuck a safety pin through several parts of the Helix of my ear, and through them were silver rings as well as an industrial piercing in my left. If my parents saw me they would call me a pincushin. I shook them immediately from my mind as I settled down onto the cement, looping my hair to use as a pillow.

Red eyes flashed through my mind as my eyelids slid downward. I had been living outside for almost five years now; thirteen was particularly traumatic for me. My mother died and I passed through three different homes that year...mostly family members I didn't know, and we passed eachother by in silence. How, I wondered, had I missed such an intruguing person after all this time. Hm. New kid. I shook my head and breathed deeply, smelling the stench of a city and relaxed into silence.

*Scene*  
"Kuro..." I sighed heavily, "PLEASE get the hell off me." Despite my vulgarity there was a smile spreading over my face as my much taller friend hopped obediantly off of my back. "So Kura-chan, what we doing today?" I smiled, shrugging as I plucked his cigarette from between his fingers. "Same thing we do everyday," I sighed and watched the cloud of smoke, "Absolutely nothing." Kuronue shook his head with a smirk and ran ahead of me down the dirty sidewalk, dodging tourists as he went "C'mon! Katashi wanted us today, remember?"

...Goddess. I hated Kata sometimes. He was not a cruel person at heart but the shit he was willing to do to get by simply made me sick. He had robbed his own grandmother on her death bed (I was there when he pawned the ring) and often I disliked myself for letting him get away with it. "Yes, yes I recall..." I wrapped my arm around Kuronue's waist, leaning my head against his shoulder. "Christ, I'm fucking tired." He laughed and ran his fingers through my hair, "That's why you should have come back home last night," he scolded, "I left the door open for you!" 'Except I hate the assholes we have to crash with...'

"Oh!" I hopped in front of him and put my hand on my hip, "By the way, we need a drug run."

"Fuck, again?" He gave me a half grin and sighed, shaking his head, "We just had a bottle of valium and a pack of coke. What happened?"

I pressed my lips together, giving him an apologetic look.

"...It's a miracle your kidneys work," he muttered, pushing my bangs to the side, "Alright, alright. We'll refill. But go easy, ok? I couldn't afford for you to have another heart attack..." I licked my lips, smiling and giving him a mock salute, "Yes my lord!" It earned me a light smack to the head. "I'm gonna need money you know!" He was walking into a store midsentence, scanning through magazines and trying not to look like he was going to rob the place. "No shit," I tried to subtly press my hand to my side, fingering the case I kept in the too-big pocket. Within it was a metal case, containing a large supply of LSD blotter paper. I'd traded it for a lay in the subway and had yet to tell my equally fucked up friend.

"So what does Katashi want?" I mumbled, kicking a small stone as we walked away from the store. Within Kuronue's pockets sat energy bars and Coca Cola he'd easily slid from the shelves. We left after purchasing gum. Something quick to learn was if you didn't buy, you looked suspicious.

"How much are we getting?" He looked at me, tilting his head forward to see my eyes clearly. "...2 bags," I mumbled, turning away because I knew exactly what was coming and I hated it already.

"Holy...fuck! Why so much? We JUST bought some!"

"It's gone." I returned his glare behind my bangs and kicked a stone, staring at a scuff in my boot. "Why do you think I've been so out these last few days?" His hand slid tiredly over his face, and he mumbled a few curses at me under his breath. "So are you going to crash on me, have a heart attack?" I shook my head, leaning against the wall of the alley I'd stopped in. I stared at the clouded sky, wishing it would rain already so I could stop dreading it. "No. ...Not again." The tongue of my boots stuck over my jeans, laces lazily tied. I sighed through my nose, ripping a stamp and putting it lightly on my tongue. The impure taste slid into my mouth; coppery and cold. 'Cheap shit. It's laced with something...' I slid down the wall to crouch, putting my head on my knees as I came to my little realization.

"Kurama, how much?" "Just one this time. Promise." I handed him one and he copied me, sitting cross legged in front of me and leaning back onto his palms. He had yet to panic or have a bad trip and I envied him for that.

"Oh look," I mumbled, feeling cotton mouthed, "It's my little friend the new kid..."

...Red surrounded me.


End file.
